Stephan Hornick
Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Episodic Campaigns Part 1: 3 Ways To Run Them
By JohnnFour | Published ??, 2014Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #607
A Brief Word From Johnn
Reading Body Language Is Easier Than I Thought
I just took an online course about how to read body language. Everyone, including your players, engages in this non-verbal communication all the time. It’s quite amazing once you start recognizing and interpreting the signs.For GMing, this information is pure gold. Use it to get quick reads of the table. Who’s sad? Who’s nervous? Who’s mad?
You can even read players’ minds because their body language will tell you what they think of each other – and you. Use this information to understand and improve player relations and to be a better facilitator and referee.
For example, the furrowed brows and tight-lipped mouth – even if they flash for a short moment – means you should approach that player differently (because it means they’re mad) than one with closed lips and a raised mouth corner (because that means they’re feeling contempt).
You can also use this skill to portray NPCs better. Just make your face and body language emote as desired, and your players will pick up on the cues subconsciously (or consciously if they’ve learned to read people too).
The course I took starts with the 7 universal facial micro-expressions. It turns out every human has these same 7 reactions that you can read, regardless of culture, age or verbal language spoken.
Though there are over 10,000 facial expressions, you just need to master the 7 core ones to correctly read people 80% of the time.
Then there’s body language. Does a player have their arms and legs tucked in? Are they leaning back in their chair? This says they’re withdrawing from your game. They’re nervous or worried and are literally trying to make themselves smaller, even if they don’t realize consciously that’s what they’re doing.
One of my biggest Aha! moments was that you can use body language to make yourself feel the way you want. If you are not feeling confident, for example, you use the body language of confidence and your brain will respond. The brain and body are tied together, so you can change your thoughts simply with the right body language.
Fascinating stuff. There are many books and courses out there about reading facial expressions and body language. I just signed up for the next level in the course series I’ve chosen, which is all about human lie detection.
If you are interested in the courses I’m taking, drop me a note and I’ll shoot you the info.
Meanwhile, today I have some tips for you on episodic campaigns. Games run like a TV series, where each session starts fresh.
There are many advantages to this campaign structure, chief being much easier coordination and more frequent gaming.